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The First Ubuntu Phone Is Here, With Underwhelming Hardware
A few days ago, Fast Company reviewer Jay Cassano was enthusiastic about Ubuntu's approach to apps for its new phone OS: namely, not relying on them, and instead interfacing seamlessly with existing websites and protocols. Now, new submitter ablutions (4006541) writes with a less than glowing review at The Daily Dot of the actual hardware that the OS is launching on. A sample that conveys the gist: Let's start with the good stuff: It sports a 4.5-inch multi-touch screen and a respectable 8-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel lens on the front. That's pretty much it. The list of negatives is a bit longer.
And it doesn't say much of anything other than rambling off hardware specs. Is this what qualifies as a review these days?
Sorry, but "Linux" from Canonical is not something I'll willingly use even (and perhaps especially) on a phone. Oh, I know I know.. after they got caught installing spyware they completely changed.. or so they say.
Look, if I had time to dig I may change my tune. I don't, and they lost my trust. Not that I was ever a user of Ubuntu, but up until they got caught I was not against them either.. thinking that getting more people into Linux was a good thing and they made it easier.
yeah yeah.. all of them other guys are bad too. At least I know what to do to protect myself a bit from those other guys.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Android's ART runtime compiles apps to native code. They literally become ELF files, just like every other executable on Linux. The Dalvik format that apps are distributed in is now serving a similar purpose to the LLVM IR used internally by Apple's compiler.
Compared to what? I can't even run modern MacOS or Windows on my old Macbooks and PCs, and Linux runs circles around the old versions of the OSes that came with them by default. Oh wait, you're joking. So hard to tell when people mistake Ubuntu for Linux around here.
Just compared the latest preview version of Elementary OS and the latest preview version of Windows 10 on a notebook with C1D and GMA950.
Elementary OS had horrible tearing, choppy and slow animations, and popped up a "System problem detected" right on the first boot.
Windows 10 worked fully smoothly with all the bells and whistles.
Linux is not the way to breathe life into an old computer anymore. That time was 15 years ago. These days you can make an old PC run Linux fast only by using a simple window manager and turning off all the desktop effects. Even then you would be left dealing with loads of bugs everywhere.